Psalm 97

❇️ Let those who love the Lord hate evil(v10)

❇️ Our love for the Lord is incomplete without our hatred for evil.Our hatred for the evil is the only hatred God allows in life. God detests evil because his eyes are too pure to look on evil (Hab.1:13).

❇️ Any one will love the Lord but how many of us can hate evil such as greed, envy, pride, arrogance, slander (Mark 7:20 – 22) hatred, discord, selfish – ambition, factions, jealousy, drunkeness and idolatory (Gal.5:19 – 21). As long as these evils are seen in our relationships and in our life, we don’t hate evil.

❇️ Though the devil may have the KYC (Know your customer) data of many people let us know KYE (Know your enemy) data of the devil in order to overcome him.

❇️ God and evil are mutually exclusive while devil and evil are mutually inclusive.I would like to highlight three main adversaries which are the reasons for evil in our life.

▶️ Devil: Be sober, be vigilent; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour (I Pet.5:8).

How to we overcome devil?

❇️ Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (Jam.4:7). Resisting devil has to start in our thoughts since he tempts us first in our thoughts. II Cor. 10:5 says by bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ one can resist the devil.

▶️ Flesh or sinful nature:
Evil works of the flesh are adultry, fornication, uncleanness, debauchery, witchcraft, discard, fits of rage, orgies etc.(Gal.5: 19 -21).
The strategy to overcome the flesh is to flee the evil desires of youth like Joseph who ran away from Potiphar’s wife to escape from the fleshly lust .

❇️ Avoid being with people or around places which may tempt us to give into fleshly lusts.Like Job let us make a covenant with our eyes to preempt temptation (Job 31:1)

▶️ World: Friendship with the world is hatred towards God (Jam.4:4) since it promotes evil works in our life. One can overcome the worldliness by our faith in God. For whoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world even our faith (I Jn.5:4).

❇️ Moneymindedness is a worldliness that can lead us to evil if we allow it to become our master instead of our servant since money is the root of all evil (I Tim.6:10).

❇️ When our faith in God’s word, his plan and his purpose for our life is strong it will enable us to overcome the pull of worldliness.

✅ Insights learnt:
▪️Love God and hate evil
▪️Resist the devil and he will flee
▪️Flee from evil desires
▪️Money is the root of all evil
▪️Increase in faith in God’s word, his plan & purpose

Dr.E.Christadoss
Vellore 🙏🏽